Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant is accusing the foreign policy think tank Rideau Institute of having ties to Russia, Iran and North Korea because a drop-down menu on the institute’s donation page allows users to select those countries as a place of origin.

Peggy Mason, president of the Rideau Institute and former UN ambassador for disarmament, appeared before the House of Commons defence committee Thursday morning to debate the merits of Canada joining the U.S. ballistic missile defence program alongside Dave Perry, a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. Perry spoke in support of considering joining the program while Mason was staunchly against it.

After an hour, Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant got the last question slot and aimed her query at Mason.

“Does the Rideau Institute receive funding from any non-Canadian entities, either directly or indirectly?” Gallant asked.

“No, no it does not,” Mason replied. “We actually receive all of our money from small donors across Canada and the only money that doesn’t come from small donors across Canada is, I guess you could say an indirect subsidy. We, in the summer get one intern under the Canada Student Employment Program, which subsidizes the salary of that individual so in that way, we have an indirect sum of money from the government but Canada but otherwise —”

That’s when Gallant jumped back in to point to a troubling feature of the Rideau Institute’s website — a drop down menu on its donation page that allows users to choose from the full list of international countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, when filling out the address for where their tax receipt should be sent.

A screen grab of the Rideau Institute’s donations page.

The donation page is hosted by the Tides Canada Foundation, a foundation registered with the Canada Revenue Agency which administers the Rideau Institute Research Fund, which Mason says represents a “tiny proportion” of the Institute’s funding.

Gallant then implied that the drop-down menu on the donations page revealed a dubious connection to funding from shady geopolitical sources.

“I was asking [crosstalk] non-Canadian entities. The reason I asked was because when I go to your website, ‘receives its funding through Tides Canada,'” said Gallant. “Now we all very well know that Tides Canada receives its funding from US Tides, Tides in the United States, which has a multitude of American interests. But when I go to your donation page and I see the different places from which an individual can donate, among them are like Russia, Iran, and North Korea, so I really have to question whether the Rideau Institute is looking after Canada’s best interests.”

Mason says the attack didn’t come as a surprise to her given Gallant’s past behaviour and that as far as she is aware, this is the first time Gallant has directly attacked the Rideau Institute since Mason took over in 2014.

“It was not a surprise to me because the questioner was Cheryl Gallant,” Mason said. “Frankly she is so over-the-top and such an embarrassment that nothing coming from her is a surprise anymore. The real disgrace is that the Conservatives nominated her for the Vice-Chair position.”

Mason has testified previously before the committee and said that despite Gallant’s attack, she saw a clear difference between the experience under the new Liberal government compared to the old Conservative one.

“The last time I spoke before the defence committee was under the Conservative tenure and the subject was NATO. It was an awful experience with the Conservative members making outlandish comments and statements,” Mason said. “The meeting today was pure joy in comparison.”

Gallant, who represents the Ottawa-area riding of Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, is vice chair of the defence committee.

Two weeks ago she accused the Liberals in the House of Commons of having sold off Chinook helicopters before securing replacements, the lack of which meant “soldiers died unnecessarily on the bomb-laden roads of Afghanistan.”

That statement is wrong though. It was the Progressive Conservative Party under former prime minister Brian Mulroney that sold off the helicopters.

In March, Gallant’s office used a picture of Nathan Cirillo, the young corporal killed by radicalized gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau on October 22, 2014, during a fundraising campaign that offered donors an Easter ham.

She later apologized after members of the Canadian Forces complained.

Gallant was also hit with criticism by the union representing Canada Post workers in October 2015 after she used the union’s logo in a campaign advertisement promising to ‘Save Canada Post.’